But overseas, Joseph Needham's magnum opus History of Science and Technology in China has published three volumes in the first four volumes, and the fifth volume is from 1954 to 1980. Needham indicated in the Book Compilation Plan that the fourth volume of this masterpiece is to solve the famous Needham puzzle. At the same time, Needham also wrote a series of papers, such as "Great Titration-Science and Society in the East and West", which gave various answers to Needham's puzzle. Many scholars in Europe, America, Japan and South Korea have conducted in-depth discussions on this issue and published many papers. In Chinese mainland, except for 1975, which translated and published the first volume, the third volume, the fourth volume and the fifth volume of the History of Science and Technology of Joseph Needham in China, there was no introduction and response to the papers and works of Joseph Needham and overseas scholars on the "Joseph Needham Problem".
In the early 1980s, inspired by the call of emancipating the mind and realizing the modernization of science and technology, China scholars became interested in the reasons for the backwardness of modern science in China in the face of the great destruction brought by the "Cultural Revolution" for ten years. From 65438 to 0980, Chen Ping explored the historical roots of China's scientific backwardness from three aspects: economic structure, political system and philosophical tradition.
1982, Du Shiran and other six researchers from the Institute of Natural Science History of Chinese Academy of Sciences published the First Draft of the History of Science and Technology in China. In the fourth section of the book's conclusion, the author specifically discusses "the reasons for the backwardness of modern science and technology in China". The author still insists on the view recognized by the mainland at that time, and attributes the failure of China to produce modern science to the shackles of the long-term feudal system. However, the author doesn't seem to understand Needham's exposition in The Great Titration, especially his challenge to China Marxist historians in Science in the East and West Societies. Needham, based on archaeological and documentary materials and referring to Marx's Critique of Political Economy published in 1952, thinks that China has never experienced a slave society, and China's Asian mode of production (feudal bureaucratic society) is different from both slave and feudal modes of production. However, historical manuscripts still adhere to "one-dimensional" in the stage of social development.
In order to promote the study of Chinese mainland's social history of science (foreign history), promote the combination of domestic and foreign historical studies, sum up historical experience, and serve the modernization of science and technology, Dialectics of Nature, China Academy of Sciences, held an academic seminar on "Reasons for China's backwardness in modern science" in Chengdu, Sichuan. Nearly 50 academic papers were read and exchanged at the meeting, and 74 delegates attended the meeting. After the meeting, 24 papers were selected and integrated.
Among these papers, Jin Guantao, Fan Hongye and Liu Qingfeng's The Evolution of Cultural Background and Technological Structure are the most influential. The author sees that many factors that promote the emergence of modern science in Western Europe and the backwardness of modern science in China are not linearly juxtaposed, and some are mutually causal and some interact with each other. Therefore, they adopt the methods of system theory and cybernetics, and regard science as a subsystem with internal structure in society, which interacts with other subsystems (economy, politics, culture, philosophy and technology) in society. They believe that western countries have a constructive view of nature, and gradually formed a cyclic acceleration mechanism between scientific theory and controlled experiments, and between science and open technology systems, thus forming and developing modern science. China, on the other hand, is an organic natural view of ethical centralism. Without controlled experiments, unified technology will not form an open technical system, so it is impossible to form a mechanism to accelerate the development of modern science. The author also uses quantitative methods to compare the development of Chinese and western science with charts and curves, trying to confirm Needham's evaluation of Chinese and western scientific achievements.
However, this article also caused some controversy, especially Fu Dawei, a scholar in Taiwan Province Province, made some important criticisms on this article. For example, the materials cited by (1) are relatively poor, and many of them are outdated materials such as General History; (2) As for the scientific structure, it is based on the early positivism and karl popper's falsificationism, but it fails to absorb the scientific revolutionary structure of thomas kuhn and the achievements of lakatos's exquisite falsificationism, and fails to pay full attention to the great influence of ideology and metaphysical philosophy on scientific development; (3) During the scientific revolution in Western Europe in the17th century, science and technology did not form a circular mechanism of mutual promotion; (4) In the quantitative comparison between Chinese and western scientific and technological achievements, the scoring standard of scientific and technological achievements is subjective and arbitrary. (At this point, Liu Bing, a mainland scholar, feels the same way. I think these criticisms are very pertinent. The weakness of this article by Jin Guantao and others really reflects some actual conditions of mainland academic circles after long-term closure and the destruction of the Cultural Revolution. At that time, it was very difficult to collect foreign language materials, and many young scholars did not have a good grasp of language tools such as English and German. When we were preparing for the Chengdu Conference, we didn't make a comprehensive survey of Needham's related expositions, but only organized the translation of an article "Poverty and Achievements of China's Scientific Tradition". It is a pioneering method for Jin Guantao and others to study the history of science by means of system theory and cybernetics. If we combine the historical data of silkworm eggs, we hope to make valuable achievements.
Lin's article "On the reasons why modern science didn't come into being in China" focuses on the inherent defects of China's traditional science (emphasizing practicality, ignoring theory, critical thinking, explaining everything with the theory of primordial yin and yang, lacking strict logical reasoning, lacking the spirit of scientific experiment, deviating from practical direction), the constraints of feudal autocratic political system (education and imperial examination system, social contempt or imprisonment of science and technology), and the obstacles of feudal economic structure and economic policy (self-sufficient small farmers and handicrafts) However, his analysis of China's social system could not get rid of the stereotype of the mainland's recognized views at that time.
Some articles by Dai Nianzu, He Xin, Liu Ji, Guo, Zhu Xihao, Fan, Qin Huibin and Hua Daming. Some have repeated or slightly developed Lin's argument, and some have supplemented "the lack of ancient Greek natural philosophy tradition", "the obstruction of mysticism to organic natural view", "the national character shorter than analysis" and "books that emphasize collection but neglect circulation"
Liu Jifeng, Song Zhenghai, Chen Chuankang, Wen Renjun, Bai Shangshu, Li Di, Chen Yalan and others analyzed (1) the philosophy and science of the Song Dynasty from different periods; (2) Zheng He's voyages to the West in the early Ming Dynasty; (3) the factors that hindered the development of science and technology in the late Ming Dynasty; (4) 17 and 18 centuries, the influence of western science on China and the reasons why western science was banned after Kangxi; (5) The development of science and technology in the early Qing Dynasty was discussed.
Le Xiucheng and Guo Jinbin discussed the reasons for the backwardness of modern mathematics in China from different aspects. Liang Zongju discussed the reasons for China's scientific backwardness from the perspective of the history of mathematics. By analyzing Li's sharp cone skills, Mei He thinks that without the introduction of modern western mathematics, China might have created analytic geometry in his own unique way; Hu Zuoxuan compared the examples of introducing and developing modern mathematics between China and Japan.
Li Bocong discussed several problems in the history and development of traditional Chinese medicine, which can still coexist with western medicine. Zou expounded the reasons for the backwardness of agricultural science and technology since the middle of last century, and the huge gap between China and western countries since 1930s. Qiu Lianghui talked about the lessons of Han Yeping Iron and Steel Company founded by Qing Dynasty bureaucrats in the article "On the backwardness of modern metallurgical technology in China", which gave a deep impression.
Although the preparations for this conference are not sufficient, especially the relevant materials from overseas are not sufficient, it is the first national conference in Chinese mainland to discuss the reasons for the backwardness of modern science in China. Most of the participants in this conference were young and middle-aged workers in the history of science, which promoted the study of Chinese mainland's social history of science and the combination of internal and external history. Especially through the discussion of different disciplines in different periods (such as Ming and Qing dynasties), the problem was discussed in depth. This meeting had a considerable impact in Chinese mainland. According to Liu, a cultural historian in China, the cultural craze that followed in academic circles was triggered by this conference and the first symposium of China cultural history researchers held in Shanghai in the same year (65438+February). This was unexpected when we initiated this meeting.